Help: Info on Pecker Dunne

Subject: Info on Pecker Dunne
From: Big Tim
Date: 10 Apr 01 - 07:39 AM

I have a CD "Travellin' People" featuring Margaret Barry and Pecker Dunne. I know a bit about Margaret Barry, can anyone give info on Pecker Dunne?

Subject: RE: Help: Info on Pecker Dunne
From: GUEST,Moleskin Joe
Date: 10 Apr 01 - 08:12 AM

Pecker Dunne was a well known Irish street singer like MB herself. I have seen several cassettes of him on sale in Ireland. I don't know if he was related to the Dunne Brothers. Good Luck, Ian M.

Subject: RE: Help: Info on Pecker Dunne
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 10 Apr 01 - 09:55 AM

Tim

There've been a few threads about him over the years. Click here for one.

Regards

Subject: RE: Help: Info on Pecker Dunne
From: Big Tim
Date: 10 Apr 01 - 10:27 AM

Thanks lads. There's a pic of him in "The Companion to Irish Traditional Music", Cork Univ Press, 1999, under the entry for "Banjo" but no entry under his own name as there is for MB. I think he's a great singer, even my long-suffering non-Irish wife, subjected to Irish music for 35 years now, likes him. Yea, Jimmy C, "a Mexican bandit from the 1840s" is a good description. Anyone know when he was born and is he still alive (MB died in 1987, born 1917).

Subject: RE: Help: Info on Pecker Dunne
From: death by whisky
Date: 10 Apr 01 - 10:52 AM

Hes living up around Kilkee/Kilrush Co. Clare.You might catch him busking with the family during the summer.Met him last year at a travellers cultural clebration.

Subject: RE: Help: Info on Pecker Dunne
From: GUEST,Moleskin Joe
Date: 10 Apr 01 - 11:22 AM

Born in Castlebar April 1st 1932. Good Luck, Ian M.

Subject: RE: Help: Info on Pecker Dunne
From: MARINER
Date: 10 Apr 01 - 03:53 PM

"The Pecker" I always thought was from Wexford, in fact from about two hundred yards from where I was bred and born and still live. I remember him with his Father "The Fiddler" Dunne busking (before the term was invented) on the streets of Wexford town.At that time he lived in an area of the town called Carcur. For the past two Summers he's shown up in Wexford with his family and played on the Main St. I've also seen him play a gig in Ardmore Co. Waterford and I think he lives near there now. He's a larger than life character and probably the last of the traveller musicians still on the road.

Subject: RE: Help: Info on Pecker Dunne
From: Jimmy C
Date: 10 Apr 01 - 11:15 PM

I also thought he was from Wexford. On the album"The Gatecrashers" with Paddy Reilly, Shea Healy and Danny Doyle, Pecker sings one of own songs " Wexford Town", One verse goes
For Wexford is a place i like
but the travelling man is scorned
But a man must show affection
for the place where he was born
?

Subject: RE: Help: Info on Pecker Dunne
From: Amos
Date: 10 Apr 01 - 11:49 PM

And, as the actress said to the Bishop, "What has your Pecker Dunne fer me lately?"

Sorry, sorry!! Couldn't resist.

A

Subject: RE: Help: Info on Pecker Dunne
From: GUEST,Moleskin Joe
Date: 11 Apr 01 - 04:15 AM

My information about date and place of birth came from the Pecker Dunne website. IF you go back up to Martin Ryan's post and click to the other thread there is a link to the website in one of the posts. Good Luck, Ian M.

Subject: RE: Help: Info on Pecker Dunne
From: Big Tim
Date: 11 Apr 01 - 04:57 AM

MJ, Martin, thanks again, so helpful.

Jimmy C: the tracks on the "Travellin' People CD are, Dirty Old Town, Come Back Paddy Reilly, The Last of the Travellin' People, She Moved Through the Fair, Ballybunion by the Sea, Down by the Broom, Portlaoise Jail (a smashing song about a brawl at Puck's fair - non political), Cottage with the Horseshoe Round the Door, Wexford, Her Mantle so Green, Whiskey in the Jar, The Leprachaun, Tinker's Lullaby, If Ever you go over to Ireland, Down by the Liffeyside ("send them all off with guns those Sein Fein huns"(!), The Half Door, Ould Morris Van, Blarney, McAlpines Fusiliers (excellent version), Lovely Derry, Roisin Dubh (banjo track). Pecker and MB take alternate tracks. It's on MCA: MCVD 30012. 1996. Cheers.

Subject: RE: Help: Info on Pecker Dunne
From: GUEST,Mikey Joe
Date: 11 Apr 01 - 06:08 AM

You can be guaraunteed to see Pecker and his children/grandchildren/nephews (not sure of relation) heading up the station road in Thurles on Munster Final sunday in July. Or any big hurling game for that matter.

Subject: RE: Help: Info on Pecker Dunne
From: MARINER
Date: 11 Apr 01 - 05:03 PM

Mikey Joe , as far as I know those children are Pecker's own. I think he started another family "late in life". He tells the story of living in a tent in Wexford and I think,playing around with horses. Some of the others told him that he was like Col.Peppard a local landowner, in time Peppard became corrupted to Pecker and that's how he got his name.

Subject: RE: Help: Info on Pecker Dunne
From: MARINER
Date: 12 Apr 01 - 01:18 AM

I forgot to mention that at the gig in the pub in Ardmore he wasn't working for a fee, because after the first set, in time honoured tradition, he passed around the hat!. The bar was choc-a-bloc and I reckon he made much more that way than he would working for a set fee. I remember years ago he did play a fiddle that he had made himself "out of a bit of an oul booord"as he said in best Wexford accent. Pecker's Father was a travellin' man but his Mother wasn't.She was from a well known Wexford town family and he has dozens of first and second cousins still living in the town.My Mother's family were well known traditional musicians and and I'm told that The Fiddler Dunne, Pecker's Father, played in the kitchen many times, along with people like Tommy and Eddie Potts, Leo Rowsome, Phil Murphy, the traditional harmonica player and many more. My Grandfather and Uncle, both named George Ross were well regarded as mallodeon players.